Friday, March 15, 2013

Mineral wealth failed to better PNG standards

Source: The National, Thursday, March 14, 2013

By MALUM NALU

“SO rich and yet so poor” is a paradox that rings true for Papua New
Guinea, as after years of extraction of our natural resources, our
standard of living seems not to have taken a turn for the better, but
for the worse.
A case in point is Daru, the forgotten “capital” of Western, which has
one of the lowest living standards in the world despite the billions of
kina from the giant Ok Tedi mine.

Rundown
post office and streets in Daru, Western province, despite the billions from Ok
Tedi mine.-Nationalpics by MALUM NALU

Everywhere in the country, we see rundown roads, schools, and hospitals,
among other facilities, which make us wonder where all the wealth from
our resources has gone to.
It was because of this that the head of Extractive Industries
Transparency Initiative (EITI) Secretariat, a global standard for
improved transparency of government revenue from natural resources,
yesterday met Prime Minister Peter O’Neill to discuss implementation of
EITI in PNG.
Jonas Moberg, the head of EITI, also met representatives from the oil,
gas, and mining industries, as well as local civil society
organisations, which he said had expressed strong support for the EITI.
He told reporters at the US Embassy in Port Moresby yesterday, after
meeting with O’Neill, that PNG was a resource-rich country with some of
the region’s largest oil, gas and mining projects, and transparency
about how much the government received from these resources was a one
key step to ensure that all citizens of PNG benefited.

Moberg
talking to reporters at the US Embassy in Port Moresby.

“The idea is very simple and that is to fight corruption, improve accountability, through transparency,” Moberg said.
“EITI is a standard implemented by countries, it’s implemented by 37
countries so far, and a number of other countries are preparing to do
so, including the United States there’s a pilot in Australia, and
obviously, there is a preparatory process by your government
“When the EITI is implemented, what essentially happens is that an
independent report is done, bringing together what the companies pay in
taxes, royalties, and fees, and what the government receives.
“So you get someone independent that has trust to go and ask all the
companies, Ok Tedi, PNG LNG and so on, ‘how much have you paid in
royalties and licence fees?’.
“And then you ask revenue commission, the IRC, and treasury, ‘how much
have you received?’ and you compare to find out how much has gone
missing.
“So the whole idea is you bring transparency in there.
“That makes it more difficult for money to go missing.”
Moberg said the EITI would be implemented by government, and supported
by industry and non-government organisations, like Transparency
International.
“It becomes very easy for transparency to become pointless,” he said.
“It has to be meaningful transparency, transparency that leads to
improved accountability, that leads to trust being built with people.
“Therefore, there has to be a commission in every country, a
multi-stakeholder group, so that government convenes an EITI PNG group,
invites the companies, invites civil society, and says that, based on
these global roles, we’re going to do it our way.
“And it is that group that needs to have the ownership of the EITI.
“There is an integral working group here so the process has started.”
Moberg said O’Neill had shown strong support for EITI at their meeting yesterday.
“His (O’Neill’s) commitment to this agenda could not have been stronger,” he said.
“We are very encouraged by what we see here.
“There is, of course, no doubt that your country has a long way to go in
making sure that this sector brings benefits to the whole population.
“But the commitment that the prime minister has demonstrated now is quite impressive.
“I think that’s something very positive.
“It’s concerted action in the fight against corruption and to improve accountability.
“It’s these kinds of practical steps that the prime minister is so keen on, and we very much welcome.”

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